Gladys takes the rise out of Bill

John Shore

It's funny how some PR exercises cry out for help and get it,
usually from a most unexpected source. Take, for example, the
gathering at St. Katherine's Dock near Tower Bridge in London, of
crews taking part in the Atlantic Challenge.

Race organisers The Challenge Business billed it as a unique
spectacle of 15 identical boats rowing up the Thames underneath
Tower Bridge. Unique it was, picturesque even.

But what made it newsworthy was the unplanned splitting of the
motorcade of the most powerful man on earth (that's Bill Clinton,
by the way, not Denis Oswald) by the lifting of the most unique
bridge in the world. Ryvita, sponsors of two lads from Poole
Rowing Club, own a Thames sailing barge named Gladys host ship
for the Ryvita contingent. Gladys arrived at the bridge at the
appointed time.

Mr Clinton, en route from lunch at a Thames-side eaterie with
Tony Blair and the charming Cherie, was not so punctual and
arrived just as the bridge was rising, splitting his motorcade in
half, much to the consternation of security.

A spokesman for Tower Bridge is quoted as saying, 'We tried to
contact the American Embassy, but they wouldn't answer the
'phone.' The result? Acres of coverage for Gladys, its captain
Terry Everitt and mate Andrew Twidell, plus the two lads from
Poole RC, but, as far as most newspaper readers could see, not a
word on the gathering of small craft doing their row-past.